Major Cabinet reshuffle on 27 October

A major Cabinet reshuffle that is expected to take place at 11:30 am on Sunday is likely to see the inclusion of several young faces, sources have told NDTV. The reshuffle is also likely to make way for an organisational revamp in the Congress. Sources suggest that a bigger role for Rahul Gandhi is on the cards; he could be made the Working President of the party.

Seven Cabinet ministers, including new faces such as K. Rehman Khan and Chandresh Kumari, and 15 Ministers of State were swornâ€”in on Sunday as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expanded his Council of Ministers.
Five Ministers of State â€”â€” Dinsha Patel, M.M. Pallam Raju, Harish Rawat, Ajay Maken and Ashwani Kumar â€”â€” were promoted to Cabinet rank.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari and actorâ€”turnedâ€”politician Chiranjeevi were brought in as Ministers of State with independent charge, whileShashi Tharoor made a comeback as Minister of State after over two years.
12 new Ministers of State were swornâ€”in. They are Tariq Anwar (Maharashtra), K Suresh (Kerala), A H Khan Chowdhry, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhry and Deepa Dasmunshi, (West Bengal), S Satyanarayana, K Jayasuyraprakash Reddy, P Balram Naik, and Killi Kriparani (Andhra Pradesh).
Lalchand Kataria (Rajasthan), Ranee Narah (Assam) and Ninong Ering (Arunachal Pradesh) are the others who were swornâ€”in as MoS.
Portfolio allocation
Law Minister Salman Khurshid was made the new External Affairs Minister, following the resignation of S.M. Krishna. Mr. Krishna had announced on Saturday that he is quitting "to make way" for the younger generation.
Ashwani Kumar, who was sworn in on Sunday was made the Law Minister. K. Rehman Khan, a long-time Congress member was made Minority Affairs Minister.
Ajay Maken was elevated as Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister. He was earlier the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Sports and Youth Affairs.
Dinsha Patel and Pallam Raju were promoted as Cabinet Ministers in Mines Ministry and HRD Ministry respectively. Kapil Sibal will now only handle Telecom portfolio.
Chandresh Kumari is the new Culture Minister and Manish Tewari, the new information and broadcasting minister.
Veerappa Moily was moved to Petroleum Ministry from Corporate Affairs, Jyotiraditya Scindia has been made Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power.
Sachin Pilot was made Minister of State in Corporate Affairs with Independent charge.
Telugu actor-turned politician, Chiranjeevi, has been alloted Minister of State (Independent) Tourism.
Tariq Anwar, the only Nationalist Congress Party MP who got a ministerial bertn is the Minister of State for Agriculture. He will be reporting to his senior party colleague Sharad Pawar, who is the Agriculture Minister.
Railways portfolio, which handled by various Trinamool Congress MPs, will now be headed by Pawan Kumar Bansal.Mr. Bansal's previous portfolio, Water Resources, will now be taken care of by Harish Rawat.
Jaipal Reddy was relieved from his existing portfolio, Petroleumand Natural Gas Ministry, and made Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences

BANGALORE: By inducting K Rahman Khan in place of S M Krishna, the Congress is aiming at strengthening their traditional vote base Backward-Dalit-Minority (BDM) in the state ahead assembly elections due next year.
Karnataka's package in the Unioncabinet can be said to be good both in terms of representation and the portfolios considering the state has 10 MPs (six in Lok Sabha and four in the Rajya Sabha) with four making it to theministry again.
Giving weightage to BDM factor ahead of assembly polls in the state, due next year, Khan has been given minority welfare withcabinet status. Mallikarjun Kharge and K H Muniyappa are dalits andhold labour and micro, small and medium enterprises respectively. M Veerappa Moily, a backward has been given all important portfolio of petroleum and natural gas.
Krishna, who was asked to resign before cabinet rejig, belonged to the major Vokkaliga community. However, the Congress leadership has ensuredthat Mandya district, heartland of Vokkaligas and Cauvery, has beenrepresented by inducting Khan, who hails from K R Pet in the same district.
The petroleum portfolio is seen an elevation for Moily, who was moved from law to corporate affairs and energy. The portfolio is important for Karnataka as GasAuthority of India Ltd )GAIL) and Karnataka State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corp (KSIIDC) have formed a joint venture company to set up city gas distribution (CGD) network for Bangalore households and fuel for CNG-run vehicles.
GAIL is laying 2,500 km natural gas pipeline covering Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra at an estimated costof Rs.10,000 crore inculding Dabhol-Bengaluru pipeline at an investment of Rs 5,000 crore andKochi-Bangalore pipeline at investment of Rs 3,782 crore. These gas pipelines would function as energy lifelines for the state. Natural gas, the cleanest fuel, is being planned as substitute for diesel and CNG corridor for city of Bengaluru. Besides meeting energy requirement for all the fertilizers and gas based power plants in the state, this projects in the pipeline is expected to provide gas for City Gas Distribution projects for all major cities/towns such as Bangalore, Belgaum, Mysore and Mangalore (Moily's home district).
State-owned Karnataka Power Corporation Limited is also setting up a 700 Mw gas-based power project at Bidadi.

NEW DELHI: Law minister Salman Khurshid's remark that he would 'work with blood' has prompted activist-politician Arvind Kejriwal to accuse him of threatening him. The minister, facing allegations from Kejriwal and a news channel, of misappropriating Rs 70 lakh of central funds, said at a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night: "I have been made the law minister and asked to work with the pen. I will work with the pen but also with blood."

Reacting to Kejriwal's announcement that IAC would campaign in the minister's constituency to press for his resignation, Khurshid said: "I don't give a visa to go there but it's a long road to Farrukhabad...it is 300 km away. Let him come to Farrukhabad, but how will he go back? He says that we will ask the questions and asks us to give the answers. Once you have heard what we have to say, you will forget the questions," the minister said.

I want sonia Dadi to take up some ministry or PM post instead of remote controlling( India). This way we can tag every scam & loot of congress directly on Sonia (G)andhi, in current situation she is not directly involved in any scam.